Will post soon, I promise!

I know I owe an update, on graduation, and on my lovely SP gift...

But right now I am sick with a nasty cold. So, I am going to get some extra sleep instead. I will be back soon.

The frantic cleaning has begun.

With Mom coming in on Wednesday to be here for graduation, the cleaning needs to be very close to done by the end of the weekend. I am desperately trying to get the shower in the master bedroom clean. I have been using bleach pens and Comet with bleach (big sigh). I am so anti-bleach, but I have tried everything else at this point, and the bleach is working. Basically, there is a lot of red staining in there. I'm fairly certain it's not rust. Anyway, it comes off the tile and tub pretty easily, but the grout won't clean with anything but bleach. And the shower curtain needs to be replaced - I have one waiting in the wings until this is clean. One thing I'd like to note is that I shower almost exclusively at the gym, so C is really the only one who uses the shower. And he never cleans it :( Anyway, after today that shower is going to be PRISTINE, and I am going to make sure it stays that way.

C has gotten the rest of the bathroom cleaning done, and the spare bedroom and about half the living room. (I was out running errands for a couple hours this afternoon). So we have made good progress and should be able to finish tomorrow.

Oh, and I bought decorations for my graduation party today. I have had to plan my own party. But I would rather plan my own party than not have a party! Now I just have to decide whether I want to bake, or order an ice cream cake (and if ice cream cake, where to get it from).

Sock Knitters - I need your help!

OK, this is primarily aimed at Michelle, but I know there are other people who read this that may be sock knitters, so anyone is welcome to respond.

When I knit socks, and go to pick up the stitches along the sides of the heel flap, I always end up with holes. I am at my wit's end. I am planning to give knit socks as Christmas gifts to quite a few family members. Seeing as how it usually takes me about 6 weeks to do a pair, that means I need to get moving NOW. So my question is, what do I need to do to stop the holes??? I read in a sock book that I should knit the picked up stitches from the back, but that seemed to make things even worse. So I am pleading with you. What do you do to avoid this? Is there maybe a better way to knit socks that doesn't involve picking up stitches (I can't imagine how)? Hellllllllllllllllllllp!

I must post cat photos!

C bought a very fancy expensive new camera (and yes, he consulted me about it first). Anyway, he's been getting used to using it, and since he studied photography quite a bit in school he's already produced some really nice shots. He got some amazing photos of the cats (more like portraits actually). I'm really excited because this is probably the first photo I've ever seen where you can actually see the definition in Lomion's face (difficult on black cats) and you can see how beautifully green his eyes are.

So here is Lomion!


And we can't leave out Tindomerel!


In other news, I won a portable DVD player at the Quality Fair at work today (they held a raffle to bribe us into coming). Of course I haven't even bothered to take it out of the package and play with it...that will come this weekend, I think.

I. Hate. My. Neighbors.

There are many reasons, most of which I shan't go into right now.

But... we were cooking supper tonight when we looked out the back window and saw a rabbit in our garden. C went outside and chased it out of the yard, and then SHUT THE GATES (which had been open). Our neighbors constantly cut through our yard (because they're buddies with other neighbors, but again, long story), and leave the goddamn gates open.

So, we went out tonight to plant squash, and found that our broccoli and cauliflower are GONE. Plants we have been working on since FEBRUARY. I am livid.

Talking to them won't help. Even if I tell them I'm sure it wasn't them, but please remember to be careful. They'll say "Oh yeah, sorry that happened" and then continue leaving the gate open. Right now I am really close to buying keyed padlocks for all 3 gates and installing them, so only we can open the gates. I am so angry. It would be one thing if bugs or disease did our plants in, but this was something totally preventable that only happened because of our lazy asshole neighbors.

Ahh, much better.

Last night I finally did the long-awaited dyejob:


Then this morning I went to a salon near my house and got the cut:



I'm not really sure how happy I am with the cut (she sort of teased it and used a ton of hairspray so it's hard to tell), but it's definitely better than before. The back has a nice extreme stack, but it's a little different style than I'm used to. So, we'll see how I feel about it in a few days. (For comparison, my profile pic was taken just after my last cut, by the guy in Ohio who has cut my hair for YEARS.)

In other news, I am a complete dumbass. I had ordered some perennials, and they showed up about 2 weeks ago. In my dumbassness, I did not open the box until today. Well, most of them were bareroot plants in bags (which is what I expected of all of them), so they will be fine. There were 4 varieties (3 each) that were potted. D'oh! They don't seem to be completely dead, but they're close. I've got them hanging out on the back patio, and I've given them some water. I'm going to baby them for a bit and see what happens, maybe I can save some of them. But they look so bad right now that I was too embarrassed to take photos.